Ivana Janů

"I used to have straight A´s at school. Girls who finished the school with D´s were able to go at least to Skoda factory to become the turners. But I wasn’t allowed to do even that. So I ended up with no education, with no degree. I basically ran away from my home. Although I was still so young I worked for the Agriculture Buildings Company in Prague. I started off at the department located in Pátek nearby Poděbrady town region."

"I didn’t expect any miracles. What I expected was the bumpy process with everything that goes with it. If there’s anything I’m worried about - it’s the democracy. You still hear only few people speaking today...To me, the fact that we have a freedom now, is the biggest conquest. Only free people can use all of their body and soul to perform great acts. You never achieve anything if you’re a retainer."

"It was the key moment in a very tense situation. The politician’s adrenalin was dosed to vote in the early October. And then we stepped into it somehow. Big money of all political parties was involved. But that’s just the political state. That’s the democracy. It happened already in the past and we didn’t get the case. The court may decide about the case only if someone deed. The Constitution itself says what kind of recipients can come up with such issue to the Constitutional Court. This time it was Mr. Melčák who came. The first respond was: ´What! He’s the deserter. He’s the...I don’t know what. It was the political party that nominated him, who should guarantee his political qualities, at the first place! The other party took him to help them with their decisions and all of a sudden he became unusable and ugly for both sides. And it was the constitutional court who was supposed to see him as some dirty person. But we don’t care about that. He brought the case in. We studied the case and made a conclusion that it is important and constitutionally appropriate. (The representative Mr. Melčák complained that the constitutional law about the early elections reduces his rights of the Member to pursue four-year mandate - editor’s note) For the first time we used the so-called constitutional law, but it was a law enacted in contravention of the constitutional procedure. It happened once before; we talked about the constitutional conventions already. Constitutional conventions may not arise from the unconstitutional procedures."

"After the year of 1968 they could face down your life by not allowing you to do what you wanted to do. But it wasn’t life threatening anymore like it used to be during the 50´s. Your life was in real danger back then, things like heavy jail or destroyed, wrecked families were common things. After 1968 I realized too, that nobody was forced to servility, unless he wanted to walk on the spotless ground. The advantage of being a member of the Communist party were so minimal - sometimes it meant that you were in charge of only two people. That’s ridiculous!"